Deirdre Clune (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State and thank him for coming to the House to debate his report. Since his appointment, and prior to it, he has been focused on this initiative. It is one of his main objectives and therefore it is welcome that he has got to this point.

We are discussing the first report, The Voice of Small Business - A Plan for Action, and the initiatives the Minister of State has undertaken to bring all the stakehodlers around one table are important. I do not believe in speaking through the media. It does not work. People need to sit down around a table and determine what are the problems. I was particularly delighted that John Threthowan of the Credit Review Office was a member of that group and heard at first hand what people are experiencing, particularly those in small business, in terms of accessing credit and the deteriorating relationship many of them have with their banks for many reasons. It is important to recognise also that the report states that small businesses must also address the problem and present credible business plans. The banks lost contact with small business during the Celtic tiger era. They did not develop the expertise to work with small business. They failed to recognise the parameters that needed to be put in place when credit was being advanced to small and medium-sized businesses. It was too easy for them to depend on property. Everybody can understand how property is bought and sold. If one buys a site, one can get planning permission to develop it and sell it on at a massive profit. That is what happened over the years, particularly in our banking sector.

I hope we are getting back to the point at which banks can operate properly once more. It has been documented that they are training staff and getting to grips with the issues that face small business. Every business works in a different environment and has different issues. The institutions that lend to businesses need to get to grips with the environment in which those businesses work.

The Minister of State mentioned the restructuring of domestic banking, which involves putting over €30 billion into the banks for SMEs and other important sectors. Last year, some €3 billion was spent on new or increased credit facilities for small and medium-sized enterprises. A further €3.5 billion will be spent this year and €4 billion will be spent next year. Each bank has informed the Department of Finance that it expects to have met its lending targets for 2011. I hope that will be the case.

I welcome the Minister of State's initiative in going around the country with representatives of Department of Finance to meet individuals. Members of this House and the other House who are looking on are concerned about the issue of access to finance for small businesses. We have heard reports from ISME and the Small Firms Association and we have had direct engagement, rather than anecdotal evidence, from people in our constituencies about the difficulties they are experiencing. We have been given counter-statements from the Irish Banking Federation that have blown what we have heard out of the water.

It is important for the Minister of State to listen. He intends to develop the structures needed to hear what individuals are saying. Many viable businesses will go to the wall for the want of small amounts of finance. We must recognise that some businesses are not viable in a recession, however, and may have to fold. Many businesses will survive if they are given a small amount of support. It is important that the Minister is taking to the road and listening to small business, which is the lifeblood of our society. I commend him on that.

The only positive thing one can say about the difficult economic period we are going through is that small business has come to the fore. It did not have a voice before now, when it was all about property and multinationals investing in this country. We tended to ignore small business and assume everything was rosy in the garden. We did not take the contribution small business makes to our society, in every parish in the country, sufficiently seriously.

If one travels from here to Galway, Sligo or Cork, one will see small businesses operating on every street one travels through. They are employing two or three people. Small and medium-sized businesses can employ up to 50 people. They are and will continue to be very important. It was clear when I read the report that those who have a great deal of entrepreneurial spirit, are willing to work hard and have ideas need to be supported. Many of them are working alone or in isolated environments. Small supports like access to mentoring and assessment of regulatory requirements are very important and need to be available.

Local authority charges, which have been mentioned, are seen as a burden on small businesses. Having been a member of a local authority, I would always have made the case for transparency in terms of charges. I felt it was not there. It is still not there. I refer to water charges and commercial rates, for example. The belief that the small business sector was an easy target in the community was well founded. If the budget did not match up we would load another percentage onto the commercial rate. Thankfully, those days have passed because of the work of Chambers Ireland and local business associations. That voice - the impact local authority charges have on businesses - has been heard.

An effort is being made to ensure that commercial rates will not be a target in the annual budgets of local authorities. Nonetheless, we are moving towards introducing water charges. For too long the commercial sector has had to bear the brunt of those, even in regard to domestic charges. There has not been a contribution from national government for domestic water consumption, as there should have been. One hopes we will have more transparency and efficiency because the private sector is paying for these charges.

I wanted to raise the issue of insolvency and debt resolution. The Government is committed to that and legislation will be introduced. It is becoming urgent. I do not refer to the high profile cases, such as that of Seán Quinn yesterday, or of other people who can go abroad and claim bankruptcy. That is not what this is about. It is about small people, individuals who have debts they cannot pay, as opposed to will not pay. Examinership is not an option for them. Perhaps there could be a facility for them away from the courts, where debts could be restructured and they could work with their creditors. This might be under the umbrella of the courts but the people would not have to bear the full cost of a High Court appearance, which is off-putting for most. As things stand these people must face bankruptcy. We need to be innovative and introduce structures that will help people. I look forward to that debate at another time.